Modern World - Modern Threats? Feat. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of the Republic of Estonia

Special Event in Celebration of the Launch of the CGA Initiative for the Study of Emerging Threats

Modern World - Modern Threats? Responses to Hybrid Aggression
Featuring Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of the Republic of Estonia

Monday, September 28, 5:30 - 7 p.m.

Toomas Ilves, President of the Republic of Estonia, in conversation with Mark Galeotti, director of the Initiative for the Study of Emerging Threats at the NYU-SPS Center for Global Affairs. Introduction by Dennis Di Lorenzo, Harvey J. Stedman Dean of the NYU School of Professional Studies.

We live in times where creating and maintaining a competitive, prosperous and secure Europe and trans-Atlantic space faces challenges not only in the military field, but also on a number of other fronts. We have ISIS or Daesh at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, we have a refugee crisis emanating from North Africa, and economic and political crises in Europe. Any one of these issues separately would be daunting. But in addition we see, a quarter century after what we thought was the end of the cold war, a revanchist and revisionist Russia that has opted out of the global and European security arrangements. As opposed to the annus mirabilis 25 years ago that gave Eastern Europe the chance to opt for freedom and democracy, the year 2014 was an annus horribilis. Russia's aggression in Ukraine marked a paradigm shift, the end of trust in the post-Cold War order.

[sumantramaitra]

I almost dozed off with the monotonous opening speech. But good stuff overall. Great to see Mark Galleotti. One of my fav Profs.